Mary Berry Carrot Cake Recipe

If you’ve ever searched “Mary Berry carrot cake recipe” and then found yourself staring at three completely different recipes, all claiming to be the one, you’re not imagining things. Mary Berry has published more than one carrot cake over the years, and they’re genuinely different enough that it matters which one you make. I’ve baked all of them at various points (my lot are very willing guinea pigs when cake is involved), and I want to save you the confusion before you get as far as grating your carrots.

The short version: In my opinion the one from her most recent book, Mary 90, is the best. It’s got an ingredient in it that sounds a bit odd at first but completely transforms the texture. I’ll explain why, walk you through the whole thing, and share the tips I’ve picked up from making it more times than I can count.

Wait, how many Mary Berry carrot cake recipes are there?

At least three that I know of, and they’re each noticeably different.

The oldest is the Fast Cakes version, a single-tin traybake using self-raising flour, brown sugar, and a modest amount of carrot. It’s a nice easy bake, great for slicing up for school lunches, but it’s not quite the showstopper you’re picturing when you think carrot cake.

Then there’s the Cookery Course version, which is the one that’s been floating around the internet for years. Two round tins, walnuts, cream cheese icing. It’s reliable and genuinely good, but it’s quite a simple recipe that doesn’t have much to distinguish it from any other decent carrot cake.

The Mary 90 version is different. It uses both caster sugar and light muscovado, it has a proper spice blend (cinnamon, ginger, and mixed spice together), and it includes mashed banana in the batter. That last bit is the thing that raises eyebrows, but please trust me on this one.

If you’ve specifically come here from the Cookery Course version, a quick word of comparison: that recipe uses only muscovado sugar, has less carrot, a simpler one-spice approach, and a much lighter icing made with just a small amount of butter and icing sugar alongside the cream cheese. It’s a fine cake. But the Mary 90 version has more depth, more moisture, and a frosting that’s noticeably more generous and satisfying. If you’ve got the choice, make this one.

Why the banana makes it better

I know. It sounds like something went wrong in the recipe development. But two ripe mashed bananas in a carrot cake do something quite specific: they add natural sweetness and moisture without making the cake heavy, and they round off the spices beautifully. You don’t taste banana in the finished cake. What you get instead is a sponge that stays genuinely soft for days and has a slightly deeper, more complex flavour than a standard carrot cake. My youngest, who normally makes a face at anything that sounds like it contains random vegetables, has asked for this for his birthday twice now.

The double sugar situation also matters. Caster sugar gives you lift and lightness, while the muscovado adds a hint of toffee depth that works brilliantly with the ginger. It’s not a complicated recipe at all, but those details are why it tastes better than it has any right to.

Why carrot cake uses oil instead of butter

Mary Berry mentions this on her own website, and it’s worth understanding because it explains a lot about why carrot cake behaves the way it does. Oil-based cakes stay moist for significantly longer than butter-based ones. Butter is solid at room temperature, which means as a butter sponge cools and sits, it starts to firm up. Oil stays liquid, so the crumb stays soft. That’s why a slice of carrot cake from the fridge on day three is still perfectly pleasant, whereas a Victoria sponge needs to be eaten pretty promptly.

The trade-off is that you don’t get the same rich, buttery flavour that a creamed sponge gives you. That’s where the spices, the muscovado, and the banana come in: they do the flavour work that butter would otherwise be doing. It’s a different kind of cake, and it’s worth thinking of it that way rather than wondering why it doesn’t taste like a Victoria sandwich.

What you’ll need

Before you start, a few shopping notes that might save you a trip back to the supermarket.

Light muscovado sugar is usually in the baking aisle next to the other sugars. Most supermarkets stock it, though it’s sometimes called “light brown muscovado.” Don’t use dark muscovado here, it’ll overpower everything.

Full-fat cream cheese for the frosting is non-negotiable. Philadelphia is the standard recommendation for a reason: it’s thick and stable enough to hold up as icing. Low-fat cream cheese has too much water in it and the frosting will slide straight off the cake. You’ve been warned.

The carrots need to be coarsely grated, not finely. A finer grate basically turns to mush during baking and you lose the little flecks of orange that make carrot cake look like carrot cake.

The bananas want to be properly ripe, the ones with black spots on the skin. They mash more easily and are sweeter, which is what you’re after here.

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 4 large eggs
• 175g caster sugar
• 75g light muscovado sugar
• 250ml sunflower oil, plus extra for greasing
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 150g carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
• 275g self-raising flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 55g walnuts or pecans, finely chopped, plus a few extra for decoration

For the cream cheese frosting:

• 250g butter, softened
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 350g icing sugar
• 350g full-fat cream cheese

How to make it

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas 4. Grease and line the bases of two 20cm loose-bottomed sandwich tins. If your tins aren’t loose-bottomed, just make sure you line generously and the sides are well-greased, because carrot cake can stick.

Break the eggs into a large bowl and beat them lightly with a fork. Add both sugars, the oil, and the vanilla and mix well until combined. This is an oil-based batter rather than a creamed butter one, so there’s no need to faff around with a stand mixer at this stage. A large bowl and a hand whisk is fine.

Add the mashed banana and grated carrot and stir through, then add the flour, baking powder, and all three spices, plus the chopped nuts. Using an electric hand whisk, mix everything together until just combined. “Just combined” is genuinely important here: overbeating develops gluten and makes the sponge tough. Stop as soon as you can’t see dry flour.

Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared tins and level the tops. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until well risen, lightly golden, and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

This is a good moment to put the kettle on. The cakes need to be completely cold before you ice them, and I mean it. Lukewarm cake plus cream cheese frosting equals a chaotic situation.

Making the cream cheese frosting

Put the softened butter, vanilla, and icing sugar into a large bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk until pale and combined. Then add the cream cheese and beat again until smooth, creamy, and light.

A couple of things to get right here. First, your butter needs to be genuinely soft, not just slightly less cold than it came out of the fridge. If you’ve got cold patches of butter, you’ll get lumps in your frosting that are a pain to fix. Second, once you add the cream cheese, don’t overbeat it. Mix until it’s just smooth and combined. Overbeating cream cheese frosting can make it looser and harder to work with.

The frosting recipe makes a generous amount, which is intentional. Carrot cake is not the place for restrained icing.

Peel the lining paper from the bottom of the sponges. Place one layer upside down on a serving plate or cake stand and spread a good third of the frosting over the top. Place the second sponge on top, right way up, and use the remaining frosting to cover the top and sides. A palette knife or the back of a spoon works well to create swirls. Finish with walnut halves around the edge or scattered across the top.

Decoration ideas

Walnut halves are the classic finish and there’s nothing wrong with them. But if you want to make it look a bit more considered, here are a few options that actually work rather than just making things more complicated.

Marzipan carrots are easier than they look and genuinely charming, especially at Easter or on a birthday cake. Take a small piece of orange marzipan, roll it into a short cone shape, score lines across it with a knife, and press a small piece of angelica or green marzipan into the top as the stalk. You can make a dozen in about ten minutes. Kids enjoy doing this bit, which is always a bonus.

A naked or semi-naked finish works beautifully with this cake. Instead of covering the sides with frosting, just fill the middle generously and spread a thinner amount on top, leaving the sides of the sponge visible. It looks elegant and is far less fiddly than trying to get smooth sides. A light dusting of ground cinnamon over the top finishes it off well.

Piped rosettes are the coffee-shop look: use a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe individual swirls across the top rather than spreading the frosting flat. Top each rosette with a walnut half or a marzipan carrot. It takes a few extra minutes but the result is noticeably impressive for very little skill required.

Things I’ve learned from making this a lot

A few of my honest notes from repeated baking, rather than just reading the recipe back to you:

The two-sugar combination really does matter. I tried it once with just caster sugar because I’d run out of muscovado, and while it was still a nice cake, it tasted noticeably flatter. The muscovado adds something warm and almost caramel-like that you’d miss if it wasn’t there.

Weigh your carrots after grating, not before. A medium carrot can vary quite a bit in size. 150g of grated carrot is the target: it sounds like a small amount but it’s enough to flavour the cake without making it waterlogged. Weigh your carrots!

Pecans instead of walnuts are worth trying. Walnuts are classic and I wouldn’t argue with them, but pecans have a slightly sweeter, butterier flavour that works beautifully in this. My eldest prefers pecans and she’s not wrong.

The frosting is better made and used the same day. It can be made ahead but tends to split slightly if it sits in the fridge for hours and then gets spread onto a cold cake straight from the fridge. If you are making it ahead, let it come back to room temperature and give it a quick beat before using.

On the “can be made up to 8 hours ahead” tip from the recipe: this is true, and it’s actually quite useful if you’re making it for a party or afternoon tea. The sponge improves slightly as it sits because the moisture from the carrots keeps working. I’ve made it the day before, kept it in the fridge covered in cling film, and it was arguably better for it.

If you’re in the middle of building out your Mary Berry baking repertoire, this pairs brilliantly with her lemon drizzle and her coffee and walnut cake. 

Storing the cake

Because of the cream cheese frosting, this needs to be kept in the fridge rather than on the counter, especially if your kitchen is warm. It’ll keep well for up to five days covered. Take slices out of the fridge about 20 minutes before eating if you can: cream cheese frosting at fridge temperature is a bit stiff and slightly less pleasant than it is at room temperature.

You can freeze the unfrosted sponges, well-wrapped, for up to two months. Defrost fully before icing.

When to make it

This cake works in any season but it earns its place especially at Easter, which is where it appears most often in our house. There’s something fitting about a carrot cake in spring, and it goes down well at the kind of relaxed family lunch where everyone’s hovering around the kitchen waiting for the chocolate eggs to be distributed. It also travels well if you’re taking it somewhere, which is useful.

Come autumn and winter, the warm spice profile makes it feel right for that time of year too. I’ve made it for bonfire night, for a friend’s birthday in November, and as an alternative to Christmas cake for people who find traditional rich fruit cake a bit much. It holds its own in any of those situations.

It’s a particularly good bake to make with children old enough to grate carrots and mash bananas, which is most of the actual work. My lot have been making this with me for a few years now and the main argument is always about who gets to lick the frosting bowl, which tells you everything you need to know about how it’s received.

Making it as cupcakes

The batter makes excellent cupcakes if you’d rather have individual portions for a party or a school bake sale. Use a standard 12-hole muffin tin lined with paper cases and fill each case about two-thirds full. Bake at the same temperature (180C/160C fan) for 20 to 25 minutes until well risen and a skewer comes out clean. They’re done sooner than you’d expect, so start checking at 20 minutes.

For the frosting, you’ll need roughly half the quantity listed above. Pipe or spread it onto fully cooled cupcakes and top each one with a walnut half or a small marzipan carrot. These keep in the fridge for up to three days and are best brought to room temperature for 15 minutes before serving. [LINK: easy bakes with kids]

Frequently asked questions

Can I make this as a traybake instead of a layered cake?

Yes, though the bake time will change. A lined 30x20cm rectangular tin works well. Check it at 40 minutes and expect it to take closer to 50 minutes total. You’ll only need about half the frosting quantity to cover the top.

Do I have to use nuts?

No. Leave them out entirely if you’re baking for anyone with a nut allergy, or if you just prefer a smoother texture. The cake is perfectly good without them.

Can I taste the banana?

Honestly, no. Once baked, the banana disappears into the background. What it adds is moisture and a slight natural sweetness rather than a banana flavour. If you’re sceptical, I understand, but please try it before you leave it out.

Why did my cream cheese frosting turn runny?

Almost always one of two things: low-fat cream cheese (it has too much water content) or overbeating after the cream cheese went in. Stick to full-fat Philadelphia and stop beating as soon as it’s smooth.

Can I use a different oil?

Sunflower or vegetable oil are both fine. What you want is a flavourless oil: don’t use olive oil or anything with a strong flavour, it’ll come through in the finished cake.

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